The Lizard King

This post was originally posted at FRS Daily Journal Plus

When I see Oliver Stone’s movie The Doors from 1991, I see a pretty entertaining movie. Where Val Kilmer plays Jim Morrison, the vocalist of The Doors, does a pretty good job of playing the Lizard King. Sings all the lyrics himself, with no lip syncing. Except that he’s three inches taller and a bigger man physically than Jim Morrison.

From what I know about The Doors, the only scenes that were accurate, were the Concert in New Haven from 1967. Where Morrison gets arrested in concert for being vulgar to New Haven police. And the Miami concert, where Morrison again gets arrest for in descent exposure and trying to incite violence. It’s a very entertaining movie, funny even, but a fantasy of what happened with that band and especially Jim Morrison in the late 60s.

Oliver Stone is a big fan of Morrison, but I think he directed the movie, the way he thought Morrison was and his experiences of The Doors. Instead of the way they actually were. Val Kilmer who plays Jim Morrison in the movie, is in I believe all the scenes. The movie looks more like a fictional portrayal of Jim Morrison. Rather than an autobiographical movie of The Doors. Robbie Krieger who was the guitarist in the real band The Doors said that the only scene that happened in real-life, was the Miami concert scene.

The Miami concert wasn’t much of anything other than an improv. With Morrison showing up two hours late for the concert, more drunk than even usual. Jim Morrison didn’t drink like a fish, but a see of fish. He’s too drunk to sing, paranoid and a few minutes into the concert once it finally starts, Jim Morrison stops singing or giving his pathetic personation of singing. And starts cursing at the audience and insulting them. Actually accusing Miami of hiding Adolph Hitler of all people. The concert turned into Amateur Night at the Improv real fast.

One thing that Oliver Stone got correct besides Miami, was the Jim Morrison’s wardrobe. With over an hour of footage of the Lizard King wearing his famous skin-tight lambskin black Leather jeans. Silver concho belt, brown suede cowboy boots and black leather cowboy boots. There’s over an hour footage of Morrison wearing his black leathers the pants that he made stylish on his own. There’s a great line in the movie where Pam, Jim’s girlfriend tells to change those stinky leathers that he’s been wearing the last three weeks. Classic Jim Morrison.

The black skin-tight leather jeans you now see a lot of rockers wearing, I know this only because I’m a big fan of the Lizard King, I love blues rock, The Doors sound. And I own several books and movies about The Doors. So watching this movie was like reading a great fiction. Very entertaining, but you don’t learn anything knew about the subject that your watching. The real Lizard King is in this video.